With Punchdrunk crossing the Atlantic and taking New York by storm, and You Me Bum Bum Train's recent five-star show, site-specific theatre seems in rude health.

Yet, after having two of my most disappointing theatre-going experiences of the last 12 months at site-specific productions – Hydrocracker's The New World Order and Jericho House's The Tempest – I fear the impact of this exciting genre is in danger of disappearing as it gets sucked into the mainstream.

The latter of these two productions used it as little more than a marketing tool. Performed in St Giles's Church, Cripplegate, The Tempest was described by the Barbican website as "site-specific" when in fact it was nothing of the sort. This wasn't a radical reinvention of the text for the religious setting, or a production that demanded the audience's involvement. Instead we got a well-intentioned but average version of Shakespeare's play, hampered by appalling sightlines and acoustics. All the producers ended up doing was creating expectations that were never met.

Another key component producers need to think about is the exact role that they're casting their audience in – and though The New World Order succeeded in making its setting come alive, on this crucial point it didn't seem to be able to make up its mind. The show, a splicing together of a selection Pinter's short political plays, was at least properly moulded to its Shoreditch Town Hall setting, despite being originally created for old police cells beneath Brighton Town Hall. When we were directed by unsmiling guards down into the building's dank bowels to watch the assorted dramas unfold, what transpired should have been an exhilarating and terrifying experience. Yet the effect was stymied by the production's failure to make it clear who the hell the audience were supposed to be: one moment we seemed to be journalists or fellow government officials, the next we were prisoners of war. It meant full engagement with the production was impossible.

As more companies offer site-specific work, audiences are becoming savvier about the form. Surely it's the duty of venues and theatre companies to ensure that if they say something is site-specific it really is – and what that means for the work itself.

When theatre like this is done properly it can been revelatory: the true shared experience that so many theatremakers strive to provide. My wish for 2012 is that theatre companies think long and hard about what it really involves.